The king's fool

It is the final year of the twentieth century and King Sidi is dying . . . Mohamed has been the king's fool for thirty-five year, his closest counsel, privy to his deepest secrets and most intimate thoughts.

It is an honoured position for which many would pay a hefty price.

Something Mohamed understands only too well, for this closeness has indeed come at a terrible cost.

The threat of imprisonment looms, even as the once-mighty monarch draws his final breaths. In the last days of this all-powerful tyrant of the twentieth century, his faithful court fool takes stock of the decades he spent in the Moroccan king's service.

For the many years of corrosive love and loyalty have left certain indelible wounds . . . Translated from the French by Ben Faccini